I Told You So

Interviews with the legendarily caustic commentator and National Book Award winner, on topics from the American empire to the national security state.

If there's a hole in the road, I will, viciously, outrageously, say there's a hole in the road and if you don't fill it in you'll break the axle of your car. One is not loved for being helpful.

In addition to gaining renown as one of America's foremost essayists, screenwriters, and novelists, Gore Vidal was a terrific conversationalist - once described by Dick Cavett as "the best talker since Oscar Wilde." This book is drawn from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with history and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.

The interviews cover a twenty-year span when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America's place in the world, are all on full display - as is his gloriously acerbic wit.